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Tuesday, December 31, 2013

And here we
are…..on the last day of 2013, and this would also be the last post of Book Kaleidoscope 2013, as well as my last post of year 2013. It has been another
great year in term of reading, I have read 54 books; 34 of them are classics
(63% of my reading is of classics…yay to me! :D). Most of the books are great,
I have conquered (at last) two chunkster I’ve been dreading all these few years:
War and Peace and Moby Dick, but both are proved to be great books. It’s quite
difficult to pick only 5 from these tough candidates, but at last I came to
this…

5. Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw

I am very
grateful that I decided to read one of Shaw’s plays: Saint Joan.
It is so inspiring and enjoyable. Joan’s character is lovable; she is far away
from your image of a saint (well, at least mine :D). She is naïve, witty,
enthusiastic, and very brave. Her lines are very deep, inspiring and touching.
The other characters are interesting too. In fact, this is the best play I read
this year, and becomes my favorite after Julius Caesar.

4. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

David Copperfield is
the most intense novel of Charles Dickens I have ever read so far, and
certainly becomes my new favorite. Dickens wrote it from the heart, he seems to
pour down his childhood burden onto this book. I could sympathize with David so
much, it feels like reading Dickens’ diary. It is well written too, with not
too much blabbing like in Little Dorrit, for instance. I would love to reread
it again some other time….

3. The Great Gatsbyby F. Scott
Fitzgerald

I have a
feeling I could never completely ‘move-on’ from The Great Gatsby.
This is the second time I read it, and it still amazed me. I love especially
Fitzgerald’s beautiful narration and his metaphors (a lot of it!). I think this
novel would never bore me, and I will love to read it every two years or so… :)

2. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

How can we
not love Moby Dick?
It is epic, adventurous, and makes you think at the same time. The
Shakespearanish style Melville sometimes used makes it more lively and
colorful; and when Moby Dick finally appeared, it is epic and unforgettable.
Captain Ahab’s character only adds the uniqueness of this novel.

1. La Bete Humaine by Emile Zola

If you are a
follower of my blog, or have been reading my posts often, you would not
surprise to learn what novel—or rather from which author—would claim the first
place in my bookish year of 2013 (by the way, his novel was also my favorite for 2012!). He is, of course, Émile Zola. And La Bete Humaine is another intense and sharp novel from Zola. It speaks a lot about human nature,
and how modernization is like two sides of a coin; it brings prosperity on one
side, but also moral corruption on the other. So, it’s not because Zola is my
favorite author, but because this book is really awesome, that I awarded La
Bete Humaine as…..

Monday, December 30, 2013

Day 4 of Book Kaleidoscope is the freebie day,
you can create whatever top five bookish criteria you want to feature. For me,
it’s the underappreciated secondary characters. After having praising five ‘shinning’
male (or female) characters in Top Five Book Boy/Girl Friends, now it is
fair to make room too for secondary characters to shine a bit in Book
Kaleidoscope. They are not what the books are about, but without them, perhaps
our heroes/heroines won’t be what they were. Here are my picks:

5. Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby

Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway (2013)

I imagine
Nick Carraway to be an innocent man who has been molded by his family to be a straightforward
man with good moral. In the middle of the jazz age, while people seek only
their own pleasure, Nick looks queer in his own principle. And that is why he
is a perfect choice to narrate The Great Gatsby, to point out the irony between
the good and the bad. Apart from the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, Nick should be
appreciated more as he is the only one who could see what’s good in Gatsby.

4. Starbuck in Moby Dick

Leo Genn as Starbuck (1956)

It is quite
funny that two of Moby Dick’s central characters are either the antagonist or
only the silent narrator. So, if I must pick a favorite, it would be the
secondary character, Starbuck, the only man in this novel who has good
conscience. Starbuck is the chief mate, not distinguished in any sort, but he
consistently keeps his conscience and principle throughout the story. Starbuck
is the most intelligent man on board, apart from Captain Ahab. I admire him
because he is very brave; has the courage to reprimand his captain because the
captain would do something evil, even though he is alone (the others, either
taking side of Ahab or don’t take any side). He is my hero from this novel!

3. Pierre Sandoz in The Masterpiece

This is Zola, and I always imagine Sandoz
as Zola himself

Although The
Masterpiece is regarded as Émile Zola’s most autobiographical novel, it is not
in the main character (Claude) that Zola’s personalities appear; it is in the
secondary character, Pierre Sandoz, Claude’s best friend. Sandoz is portrayed
as an amiable and enthusiast young man, loves socializing and is always
attentive to his friends. He loves to have small dinner party at his house
every week, and the habit continues after he is married. To his friends, Sandoz
is like a father or big brother who is always ready to protect them from
world’s cruelty. It’s impossible to not feeling warm every time you read about
Sandoz, because that’s how he is. I’m just wondering, whether Zola is really
like a guy like that, if yes, I would love him ever more!

2. Robin Ellacott in The Cuckoo’s
Calling

Robin is
Cormoran Strike’s secretary. She is an attractive young woman, and is
interested in detective and investigation. Robin is proved to be very
efficient, sharp, and has a natural talent of a detective. She is a woman with
principle and dignity; and although she is an employee, she let her boos know
that she deserves to be respected properly. She does not like gossips or
sneaking around his boss’ privacy, and although her boss is not treating her
very well, she keeps defending him, as a secretary should do to her boss and
her institution. I like Robin a lot, and really want to be like her. Talking
about Robin, doesn’t she remind you of someone familiar….uhm…Hermione Granger,
perhaps? So, do you think Emma Watson would be a good choice to play Robin
Ellacott? :)

Emma Watson
as Robin Ellacott, will you agree?

1. Tommy Traddlesin David Copperfield

While David
Copperfield—whose life is told in this book—has no distinguished personalities,
I like Tommy (Thomas) Traddles much better than David. Traddles is
good-humoured, lively person; he is persevere against hardship, and always
knows what he is doing. Traddles is also a good friend, faithful, and always
helpful towards others. In short, he is a guy who always makes our days fun.
But more than that, Traddles can become serious and responsible while attaining
some important matters. He helps his friends in needs silently and joyfully.
Therefore I crowned him as…

What are you
featuring today in Book Kaleidoscope? Or do you have any favorite unappreciated
secondary character too? Share it in the linky below!

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Next week I am going to have two readathons. The first one is what I call My Personal Readathon, something that I'll be doing with a few of blogger friends (you are welcomed to join, if you like). It is a 36 hours readathon, starting at 8 am (GMT+7) Monday morning (30th December 2013) and ends at 8 pm Tuesday night (31st Desember 2013). The detailed info is here.

I have prepared these two books for 36 hours:

Yes, I'm going to have light reading to close this year. And if I have finished them before the readathon ends, I might add another light book, The Call of the Wild, for instance...

############

After closing 2013 with a few light readings, I would be ready to welcome 2014 with another readathon, The 2nd Annual Classics Club Readathon. It will be held on January 4th, 2014, for 24 hours.

I have been eagerly to start the new year with my history book:

What do you plan for the turning of the year's read? Would you join any of the readathon? ;)

Although it
is a very short book, Notes From
Underground is far from light reading. I have started it last year, but had
to stop at first chapter as I did not get what it is about. This year my friend
enticed me to read it together, as it should be a good book. I took her
challenge, and braced myself to read from the beginning, to get through the
point where I have stuck last year, and to keep on reading—whether I understand
it or not—as I believe I will get on it eventually after some chapters.
Although I could not say I like it after finishing the book, I still feel
grateful that I have at least tried it. It is my first encounter with
Dostoyevsky anyway, and although I didn’t enjoy Notes From Underground, I like
the way he writes, and would certainly read his other novels (I have Crime and
Punishment in my TBR pile already).

Notes From Underground is told from
first person point of view, and written as a kind of diary of the male narrator
(I will call him ‘the narrator’). The narrator is a man of forties, lives in a
wretched house which he calls the
underground. He is a spiteful man, and from the beginning he has been
bursting spiteful expressions about everything. He does not hate someone or
something in particular, but he hates the world he is living. Odd as it was, I
kept reading, and only after reaching the middle part, that I began to have a
clearer image about this narrator.

He feels
different from others because he is more intelligent and more superior to
others. I think it is because he put himself above others, that others see him
strange, anti social, and expel him for good. He despises the way they live, yet
he yearns to be part of them; there is a paradox and self-denying here! The
narrator often pictures it as tooth-ache; you hate the pain, yet you enjoy
people’s attention; you want the ache stop, yet you regret it when it stops
because you’ll lose people’s attention when you are recovered.

At first I
thought this book is about a political criticism, but apparently it is more
psychological (and philosophical?). I think it criticizes how men always want
to be independent—which he calls freedom—while in reality, he also likes to be
controlled; to be in orderliness. They despise law, but at certain point they demand
to be regulated by it. Men are too tied to rules and are afraid to be free.
They see people who don’t live by the same rule as weird. This is what the
narrator feels; just because he doesn’t agree with others’ way of life, they
see him as a fly. He longs to be free but couldn’t, and that makes him a
despiteful man.

The narrator
knows he is at an equal level with his friends but he always resentfully surrenders
to their power. He does once an experiment by not yielding when passing a
gentleman, shoulder to shoulder on the street; it is very difficult for him
because in the end he always involuntarily yields. The narrator also talks much
about consciousness. Here are several interesting quotes that makes you think
more about human and society.

"To be too conscious is an illness.”

“Man has preferred to act as he chose and not
in the least as his reason and advantage dictated.”

“What man wants is simply independent choice,
whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.”

“Man lives to make roads and to create, but
why has he such a passionate love for destruction and chaos also?”

“He loves the process of attaining, but does
not quite like to have attained.”

“Through civilization mankind becomes softer.”
~ Buckle

“You boast of consciousness, but you are not
sure of your ground, for though your mind works, yet your heart is darkened and
corrupt, and you cannot have a full, genuine consciousness without a pure heart.”

Can you
guess what all these are about? I have a vague idea, but still could not grab
the whole idea. I might not reread this book, but I would certainly love to
read more from Dostoyevsky.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Cover must
have been one of the most important aspects of a book, and that’s why we are
having this criteria for Book Kaleidoscope Day 3. Honestly, I didn’t read many
books with very artistic cover this year, and I read a lot of ebooks too. But
five best cover must I pick, so here they are….

5. La Bete Humaine
by Emile Zola

I don’t know
why, I just love this cover from the moment I first saw it. I thought at that
time, that this is a man who is reflecting his evil doing—maybe having a bit
moral-struggling—and considering whether he must jump from the bridge or not. Then
after I read the book, I thought, perhaps he is crying over his ‘beast-within’
which he could not control. Overall, I love the perfect angle, and the clean
whitish style of Oxford Classics books.

4. The Beekeeper’s
Apprenticeby Laurie R. King

Since I love
red, this cover has interested me already since I saw the book for the first
time. Mizan publishing, who translated the Mary Russell series into Bahasa
Indonesia, has done a good job in combining the early 20th century
theme (from the wooden door and the building background) and the feminine touch
(the color red and the tumbling honey pot) brought by Mary Russell into Holmes’
masculine aspects. I could sense mystery and sweetness at the same time.

3. The Old Man and The
Seaby Ernest Hemingway

This is the
Indonesian-translated edition from Serambi publishing. I love the art in this
cover, it’s not only artistic but also represents the book theme. The
illustrator could grasp the old man’s hardship into this illustration, just
look at his face, and you could tell how he has been living a very hard life.
And although he could finally win the big marlin fish, it’s not the end of his
hardship; it’s only another drama in the sea. And so, the old man would through
that kind of life again and again, maybe to his last day, but he keeps strive
on.

2. Moby Dick by
Herman Melville

Lately I am
fond of Penguin English Library edition, the colorful cover and the tiled icons
which always represent the book main theme. In Moby Dick’s, the icons reflect
perfectly its theme—or one of its main themes—the cruel means of killing whales
which is a noble creature. It is represented in the whales and the sharp-pointed
harpoons. And there are white whales too (like Moby Dick) which adding the air
of tragedy (adding the pureness to the existing nobleness of whales). As in
Moby Dick Melville put a touch of divinity, killing a white whale in barbarian
manner like this in the cover can be regarded as how savage it is when men want
to ‘kill’ God.

1. The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

From so many
editions of The Great Gatsby, this particular one if my favorite. It’s a
hardback edition from Penguin Classics (now becomes one my most precious
treasure…). I love its classics motive (the semi circles look like waves, don’t
you think?) and the color. The beige background and the bronze motive (it is so
‘Gatsby’, right?) are very elegant, just reflecting the atmosphere Gatsby
wanted to create to amuse Daisy: solid and elegant. And that’s why it becomes
my choice of…..

Friday, December 27, 2013

While the
first category (Top Five Book Boy Friends) is relatively easy, picking
memorable quotes turned out to be a harder one. And books I have read this year—although
not too many—contains many good quotes. These five I have picked are probably
not the best of all, but they are five quotes that first popped in my head, and
thus, being the most memorable ones for me. Here they are:

5. The Confessionby
John Grisham

The quote is
from Keith Schroeder, a reverend who is accidentally involved in a death
penalty case. He criticizes the death penalty as it is actually a systematic
killing empowered by law. I agree!

4. The Portrait of A
Ladyby Henry James

It might not be a very inspiring line from Ralph
Touchett; and you must read the book to know the emotional touch of what Ralph
says to Isabel. It’s an ordinary line, but it really reminds me of one
particular event—the most emotional one—that made me cry when reading this
book. I cannot reveal more than this without revealing the whole story.

3. War and Peaceby Leo Tolstoy

Again, this quote
might not have any meanings for you, not touching, nor inspiring. It’s Andrew
Bolkonski’s line during the war. It’s memorable to me because that quote made
me realize the true nature of a war. I have never thought about it before I
read War and Peace, and Tolstoy has changed my way of thinking about war after
I finished it. This quote extracted what Tolstoy meant to say about war.

2. Harry Potter and
the Goblet of Fireby J.K. Rowling

And this is
the most memorable wisdom from Professor Albus Dumbledore. I feel that this is
one of the big messages Rowling wants to convey by writing Harry Potter
(besides about love conquering evil). It talks about the freedom to choose what
we would become, it’s a free will, and even God could not control our choices.
He only leads us, persuades us to be good, but in the end, it’s our own
decision that decide what we become. It’s a simple, yet strong, quote!

1. The Great Gatsbyby
F. Scott Fitzgerald

And the
winner is…..of course….this famous ending from The Great Gatsby. I loved it even
when I first read it (and didn’t quite understand most of the prose). I loved
it more after rereading it (and now understand it quite much). The quote is
laden with hidden meanings, but Fitzgerald wrote it beautifully. It’s Nick
Carraway’s line talking about how Americans (represented by Gatsby in this
story) pursue their dream while still holding the past. One of the most
memorable quotes from one of the most memorable book!

Thursday, December 26, 2013

This is the
first day of Book Kaleidoscope 2013, the rewinding of bookish aspects of
books we have read this year. There are not too many interesting male
protagonists to pick (and I only read 53 books, 10 of them are plays), so it’s
not so hard a task. Four of the (lucky) five are from classics books, while the
other one…well, I just can’t resist to slip this character from a popular book.
Here they are, and the actors who best played (or will best play) them:

5. Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby

Jay came as
my last choice to complete the five candidates. At first I had a hope in David
Copperfield, but at the same time I also felt that he didn’t have a very strong
character that distinguished enough. He is good, kind, tender, but…nothing
special. While Jay Gatsby—despite of his believing his fake dream—is a strong
man, brave, and determined, qualities I always admire on men. I like men who
have ambition or dream, and focus his way to pursue it. Gatsby doesn’t lament
on his poor condition, he works hard to get out of it. Moreover, he is good
towards his father. Although he is now very rich, he never forgets his poor
father. Yes, I don’t approve of his way of doing business, but I prefer a
brilliant man who makes mistakes than a sentimental man with almost no flaw.
*Sorry Copperfield…!*

On second
thought, maybe I picked Jay because I just couldn’t resist bringing Leo here…
LOL!

Leonardo di
Caprio as Jay Gatsby (2013)

4. Cormoran Strikein The Cuckoo’s Calling

In the first
half of the book, Cormoran might not emerge as a favorite male character. He is
not charming, nor dandy, and his life seems to be a mess. But while the story
is developing, so does Cormoran. He might not be in his best of times, but he
is certainly a man of principle and good moral, and he always fight for it. I
could not reveal his conduct here, else I would accidentally reveal some
clue/spoilers! Cormoran is an attentive guy too; while his own life is in
trouble, he still pays attention to his secretary. Oh….I must restrain myself
from throwing any spoilers, but what I want to say is….despite of one little flaw
of his, Cormoran deserves to be one of my favorites. This book isn’t yet made
into movie, but some has picked this guy to best play Cormoran. Do you agree…?
:D

Tom Hardy as
Cormoran Strike??

3.

Ralph Touchettin The Portrait of A Lady

Ralph might
not be the most handsome and charming guy in the world, but he has one of the
strongest points I like from a man: he understands women! Ralph is a guy who
gives room for women. He doesn’t have the tendency of conquering women; and he
believes that women, too, need to have their own freedom; that they need to
make decisions by themselves. Moreover, Ralph is not possessive, he loves from
afar. He is not demanding, on the contrary he unselfishly gives his best for
the woman he loves without her knowing it. That is an act of sacrificing, isn’t
it, and can you resist a man who makes such sacrify?

Martin
Donovan as Ralph Touchett (1996)

2. Lord Arthur Goringin An Ideal Husband

I doubt it
if Lord Goring’s type would be the ideal husband to any women, but his
character is indeed interesting. He is easy going, sometimes sarcastic—humorous
sarcastic—and intelligent. But deep inside, Arthur Goring is a kind hearted
man. He praises the value of love, marriage, friendship, and women’s importance
in the society. Goring was also ready to take a big risk when two of his best
friends were in a life crisis. In short, he is brave, smart, humorous, and tender-hearted.
What else could you expect to be an ideal husband? Handsome and sexy? Ermm….you’ll
get them too, if Lord Goring is really like this….

Rupert
Everett as Lord Goring (1999)

1. Prince Andrew
(Andrei) Bolkonskiin War and Peace

I have
fallen in love with him from the first moment he was mentioned in the book. He
seems to be charming, gallant, and a very talented country man. Perhaps his
only flaw is his over-confidence, which makes him sometimes too much proud of
himself. *spoiler* I was really glad when he finally recovered from his grief,
and his spirit’s rekindled. That is the man I would have dreamed to marry, if I
lived in that era. His career in the war made me proud too, as unlike others,
Andrew could see the reality of war (and I believe his views are Tolstoy’s). I
love him more after he’s repented; for men make mistakes, but the most
important thing is whether he would admit it and apologize. Andrew has done it,
and so….he becomes my….

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Friday, December 20, 2013

Tony
Morrison really likes to open a novel in an oddly way; as in Beloved, so is in
Song of Solomon. It is opened with a suicide letter from an insurance agent,
who announced that he will fly from the hospital top on certain date and hour.
‘Why?’ I instantly asked myself. And
my question remained unanswered through almost the whole story. The insurance
agent turns out not to be the main character either. He only serves as a
symbol. The center of the story is about Macon ‘Milkman’ Dead and his people.

It was on
the day of the insurance agent’s suicide, that Milkman was born. He was born in
the richest black family in the town; his father was in property business,
while his mother was a daughter of a respectable doctor. While he was growing
up, little by little the dark secrets of the family were revealed. The ugly
truths disturbed Milkman; he felt that he did not have freedom. His father—who
wanted to kill him before he was born—now wanted him to help him in business. His
mother has used him as a boy to amuse herself. Hagar wanted to have his life
because she could not get his love. Even his name he got from someone else’s
faults. He felt that everything is a mess, no one lived normally within his
family and his people. He was weary of all that and wanted to leave everything
behind but had no power to do that as he did not have money.

While
Milkman was searching the value of his life, Guitar—his best friend since
childhood—was getting weird. He became too serious and was obsessed with racial
issues. Milkman found out later that he has joined a society called Seven Days,
whose aim was to kill white people as many as they have killed the blacks.
Guitar believed that by holding up the population of the whites, they would
have less power to oppress the blacks. So, both Milkman and Guitar were finding
their own way to escape the crushed world they were now living.

Since
Milkman has been living quite comfortably, he did not get as desperate as
Guitar. His father asked him to trace the sack of gold of his, which he
suspected has been stolen by his sister Pilate. This mission finally led Milkman
not to the gold, but to the true history of his ancestors. From a children’s
song he learned the story of Solomon, his great grandfather, a great Negro who
was praised by his people because he managed to ‘fly’. And so Milkman was
inspired by Solomon; if his great grandfather could ‘fly’, so could he.

It was only
when I was in the last chapter, that I realized what Morrison has been fussing
about the ‘fly’. First the fly of the insurance agent in the opening, then
Solomon’s fly. And people here don’t feel it strange that a human can fly;
instead, they praised Solomon for succeeding in flying, although by doing that
he ought to leave his wife grieving. Milkman too was overjoyed of his great
grandfather’s achievement. And so I began to think that the ‘fly’ here might
means the efforts to leave their present depressing situation to a brighter
future. Morrison encourages us that to keep hoping and thinking positively,
that someday you might see the chance to fly away.

This is my second
Toni Morrison, and I still enjoyed it. Unlike Beloved that is quite shocking,
Song of Solomon feels like reading an adventure novel. The plot flows nicely,
although Morrison keeps starting chapters from the middle of an event, and
while we are asking what it is all about, she throws the clues here and there, until
at one point the whole event is revealed.

Four stars
for Song of Solomon, and I think I might read Morrison other novels in the
future.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

I saw this meme in Mabel’s blog, and found it interesting. It is hosted by The Indextrious Reader (although she hasn’t posted it this year yet). The rule is totake the first line of each month's post over the past year and see what it tells you about your blogging year. So here is my 2013 in first lines,

January: “I don’t know why it takes me
so long to read one of Ernest Hemingway’s masterpieces: The Old Man and The Sea.”

February: “Of all Dickens’ novel I
haven’t yet read, The Mystery of Edwin
Drood is perhaps one I’ve been looking forward the most.”

March: “This is perhaps my third
reading of Alexandre Dumas’ first installment of D’Artagnan Romances series: The Three Musketeers."

April: “If there is one thing I like
most from La Bête Humaine—besides the
story and what laid beneath it, of course—it is the beautiful way Zola wrote
the passages about La Lison’s adventures.”

May: “If there are books I would love
to read over and over again, The Great
Gatsby must be one of them.”

June: “Like Dante--‘midway upon the
journey of our life/I found myself within a forest dark…’—I too felt like being
plunged into darkness when I decided to read a narrative poem of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, end of last month.”

July: “For more than a week I have been
delving into Dante’s Purgatorio, and
this particular quote has been captured my mind.”

August: “Apparently, War and Peace still doesn’t stop to
amaze me till now.”

September: “There are so many plays I
had wanted to read for this last freebie month of Let’s Read Plays; but at the
end I picked George Bernard Shaw’s Saint
Joan.”

October: “After reading Hamlet, I can officially announce that
tragedy is my most favorite theme when it comes to plays.”

November: “The saddest moment of
hosting an event is…. when you have to end it. :(“

December: “As soon as I read the last
line, and closed the book for good, I could only think…how emotional David Copperfield is; it’s much more
intense than any other books I have read so far by Dickens.”

I am now
reading my last classic for 2013, but have already been eager to start 2014! :)

I opt to
work only on the second and third level of inquiries for Song of Solomon; which
I wrap up in this one post.

Logic-Stage Inquiry

What does Milkman
want? What is standing in his way? And what strategy does he pursue in order to
overcome this block?

Milkman
wants freedom; freedom to lead his
own life, not the life the society forces him to take. Even before he was born,
it is as if his fate has been scratched into his book of life. After he’s grown
up, everyone seems to want his life, own
him, need him, and won’t let him alone (his father, his mother, his
girlfriend, even Guitar). To overcome the block, Milkman knows he needs to leave his past, stays away
from his families and all their histories. So, when his father asks him to find
the gold, he leaves eagerly to the South. It’s not merely about the gold—although
he believes it is at first—but more about the freedom, to do something his own
way, to decide things by himself, to take control of his life.

Beginnings and
endings

I believe this
is one of Toni Morrison’s strengths: how she arranges her writings in a neat
and tidy package. The novel begins with a
‘fly’ and ends also with a ‘fly’. The first fly—the insurance agent’s leap
from the hospital roof—feels strange, and I didn’t know what it means until I
reach the ending. And only when Milkman leaps towards Guitar, did I realize
what all the leaps in this novel meant.

Images and metaphors

Being a
magical realism, of course there are a lot of metaphors here. I only discuss
one of them: the leap or the flying. People
in this book do not think it strange for men to fly. So, it must have represented
something real. After finishing the book, I think ‘flying’ here means flying
from your helpless situation to a new brighter future. Milkman is so happy when
he learns that Solomon—his great grandfather—can fly, and he thinks, if his
great grandfather can fly, so can he. I think the flying for black people here
represents the escaping from the whites’ domination and injustice.

Rhetoric-Stage
Inquiry

Do you sympathize
with the characters? Which ones, and why?

I thought
more about Milkman and Guitar than the
other characters in this novel. They both want to fly from their present
conditions, although by leading different paths. They both would have led a
great future if they were born as white men. Even Milkman, with a comfortable
living, still feels oppressedby the racial colonialism; let alone
Guitar, who have neither freedom nor money. His choice is wrong—killing innocent
people is wrong—but it’s only to highlight how he feels so helpless; that there
is no way out other than savage killings. And they—Milkman and Guitar—must go
through that just because they are born black.

What does the setting
of the book tell you about the way human beings are shaped?

It tells me that
colonialism would only bring moral
corruption to the oppressed. When you treat others inhumanly, they would
grow savage, because men are created to be free. And after some generations, it
would shape their whole race or nation’s mental. It is not that certain race is
worse than the others; look at Milkman and Guitar; if they were born white,
things would have been different. Milkman would not be that indifferent, while
Guitar would perhaps not be a savage killer. They do not want to be that way,
but they are forced to survive in the crushed world they live in. And all that is
because they are black.

What exactly is the
writer telling you?

Morrison wants
us to witness the ugly truth of whites’
colonization towards the blacks. She wants to show us what really happened
inside the society. Most of them were perhaps just living it bitterly, but some
of them show us that they too have dignity; dignity to force them to leave
their families, or, like Guitar, to be a savage killer. And all these mess were
caused by the racial colonization. They do not want to be that way, but they
were helpless. She also tells us not to live submissively under the colonialism, she tells us to fly or leap to a brighter future.

In what sense is the
book true?

It’s true that
men tend to feel superior against others who are different from them, and I
believe racial colonialism is still happening even today.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Following
Part 1 summary, here are the chapter summary of Song of Solomon Part 2 (the
last one).

Chapter 10

Milkman went
to the South to get the gold from the cave, but found nothing. He met Circe—the
old woman who hid Macon and Pilate after their father’s death—and combining her
and Pilate’s stories, he concluded that Pilate must have brought the gold from
the cave and hid it somewhere. And now he went on to retrace her tracks.

Chapter 11

He arrived
at Shalimar, where his people (the Deads) used to live, while Guitar sent him
death-message Seven Days style, though he didn’t believed it at first. He got
an unpleasant welcome from the people because he was rich; he survived from a
fight with them, and then was invited to join night hunting by other group.
During the hunting Guitar has attempted to strangle him but failed; and from
the hunting folks he got more information about his grandmother’s family.

Chapter 12

Milkman
visited a woman—Susan Byrd—who was the niece of his grandmother, Sing, but here
he lost the trace. Guitar met him finally; he wanted to kill him because he
thought Milkman secretly shipped the gold to own it himself. From children’s
song in a game, Milkman found the missing link about his ancestors’ history.

Chapter 13

Back to Susan
Byrd’s, Milkman got the real story about his great grandfather Solomon who ran
away with his wife Sing; but he then ‘flew’ away and left his grieved wife lost
her mind. Meanwhile Hagar also lost her mind after Milkman left her, and
finally died.

Chapter 14

Milkman
returned to Susan Byrd’s, and this time had the missing pieces were revealed;
how Solomon had twenty one children, and Jake—Milkman’s grandfather—was one of them.
A woman named Heddy who had a daughter named Sing took care of Jake after his
father left him. Jake then left their hometown in a wagon, after marrying Sing,
and directed to the North.

Chapter 15

Excited with
his investigation result, Milkman went home, only to learn that Hagar was dead.
He told Pilate that the bones in her sack actually belonged to her own father.
He then took Pilate to Shalimar, but Guitar followed them and shot Pilate to
death. Milkman knew that he’d kill him next, but before that—imitating his
grandfather—he leapt towards Guitar.